Lehane Family Adventures: April 2009

We got back from Hiroshima yesterday late last night. It was a fun trip. We left early on Wed. and returned late Friday night. We took the JR train into Tokyo, which is about a hour and a half train ride. When we got to Tokyo station we went to the bullet train and it was a four hour ride through Japan to get there. We saw Mount Fuji, a bunch of Japanese castles, shrines and Kyoto (a big city) through the window of the train. We arrived in Hiroshima around 2 pm and walked to the hotel. ****Note, when you are staying in a hotel in Japan , be careful about turning on the TV with the kids in the room, they will get an eye full. ******. The next day we did a day tour of Hiroshima and Miayjima Island. First we took a ferry out to the Island and walked around Itsukushima shrine. They had deer there that would walk up to you and eat your plastic bag or paper. Hunter had fun petting them. When we were going into the shrine, there was a traditional Japanese wedding going on. They girl had a white kimono on and the male had the traditional wedding outfit on. We ate before we left the Island and we all ate the Okonomiyaki (a thin pancake with cabbage, bean sprouts, green onion, eggs, bacon, and noodles topped with a sweet soy sauce). It was pretty good and the boys enjoyed it. It was fun to watch Hunter eating with chop sticks. Avery did very well eating with the chop sticks. We got back on the ferry and headed for the bus to go back to Hiroshima and then stopped at the A-bomb dome and walked to the Peace Memorial Park and Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. The Peace Memorial Museum had "Numerous graphic exhibits conveying the stark reality of the atomic bombing forcefully declare the sanctity of peace. " The tour guide was from Hiroshima and she said that her parents were A-bomb survivors. She was very informative, they have a memorial to a little girl that was an A-bomb survivor and ended up developing Leukemia and died at age 12. Legend says that anyone who folds one thousand paper cranes will have their heart's desire come true. The origami crane has become a symbol of peace because of this legend, and because of a young Japanese girl named Sadako Sasaki. Sadako was exposed to the radiation of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima as an infant, and it took its inevitable toll on her health. She was then a hibakusha — an atom bomb survivor. By the time she was twelve in 1955, she was dying of leukemia. Hearing the legend, she decided to fold one thousand origami cranes so that she could live. However, when she saw that the other children in her ward were dying, she realized that she would not survive and wished instead for world peace and an end to suffering.
We each folded a crane and placed it at the memorial. They had tons of cranes there that people have left.
The tour guide was wonderful and very informative. The people that were near the blast were severely burned and some had their skin hanging off of them like melted wax. They had a scene set up with mannequins walking with the skin hanging from their arms and Hunter started to ask all kinds of questions. At the end of the tour the bus took us back to the train station and we picked up dinner (McDonald's, very Japanese, lol) and headed back to the hotel. The next morning we checked out of the hotel and walked to Hiroshima Castle and looked around there for an hour and then walked to Shukkei-en Garden and they had quite a few Japanese weddings going on , I guess because of the Cherry Blossoms. Then we made our way to the train station to catch the bullet train into Tokyo. It was a very informative trip and the kids learned so much and will remember this trip especially when they have to learn about Hiroshima and the A-bomb in school (what ever grade they learn about it). I will post some pictures tomorrow.